


Trick or Treat

by rosabelladarling



Category: Kuroshitsuji | Black Butler
Genre: Black Butler Net, Gen, Halloween, Original Character Death(s), Trick or Treating, WAD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-22
Updated: 2015-11-22
Packaged: 2018-05-02 21:18:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,825
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5263949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosabelladarling/pseuds/rosabelladarling
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>William T. Spears reaps a soul on Halloween night. Written for William Appreciation Day.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Trick or Treat

Halloween was something worse than the devil’s holiday – it was Satan’s cry to arms in a damned world. At least that’s what Giovanni Parrish felt as he slipped on his robe and grumbled his way down the stairs. For a moment, he willed himself to question if the knocking had merely been a product of his half-dazed brain. But then the tapping on his door came again – somewhat loud and agitated this time.

“Yeah…yeah…be grateful that I don’t call the guard on yah, ye filthy devil worshippers!” said Giovanni loud enough to be heard and yet not quite so loudly as to be heard _with certainty_. Shuffling an aching foot back into a slipper that had loosened about his toes, he grabbed the candy bowl and made his way to the door.

If his late night visitor had heard his earlier jab, they did not show it. They knocked again with precision and punching might.

Giovanni shook his head all the way to the door, minding the quake in his aged hands as the candies sloshed like raindrops against one another’s crinkling wrappers.

Balancing the bowl atop a desk leaning to the left of the door, Giovanni took hold of the doorknob with what he had meant to be determination but came out as a slippery grip.

“What?” he snapped, opening the door the slightest of slivers.

The man that stood on the dimly lit doorstep was tall and lean with a face that seemed strung far too tight. When a lightning bolt sliced through the night, the flash set off the man’s eyeglasses to a shock of silver. The sharp bones of his face jutted out as finely cut as the skull beneath the pale skin.

“What?” Giovanni repeated, louder this time. The man was dressed like a salesman with a suit and shoes that seemed dry even despite spotty showers in London that night. And too damn tall. When Giovanni squinted back up at the man to glare straight into his eyes, he noticed that the man was holding…a pruner?

“No! No!” cried Giovanni. “I don have no need feh yah gardening skills in the dead of the night. Go on with you! Shoo!”

Before Giovanni could slam the door in the man’s face with a satisfying “humph,” the man jabbed his pruner against the door. The sharp edge slapped the wood just inches from Giovanni’s head.

“Hello. My name is William T. Spears. I have come to ask you a question of dire importance,” said the man, even and low. He slipped the pruner down to point at the bowl of candies just barely visible. “Trick…or treat?”

Giovanni frowned deeply. The hard and huffy way that used to drive his dear dead wife to curse.

“Shoo!” he repeated.

Shaking his head, William said, “Trick or treat?”

Fuming, Giovanni swiped the bowl to his side with a force that sent lemon drops flying. “I’ll be givin’ yah a treat ahright! Treat against yer no-hearing ears! SKEEDADDLE WITH YE!”

William leaned back, his mouth wide with retort, just far enough so that Giovanni could slap the door close without fearing the pruner giving him a concussion.

“The gall of those salesmen with their fucking suits and their fucking prep-school hair…I had better hair when I was a young’un,” Giovanni grumbled, throwing the candy bowl back onto a table. A photo of his eldest son fell backward in response and Giovanni only frowned at it. Jeffery would have been 60…no, 62 by now. Not that he cared. Not a one of his five children gave him the consideration of a Christmas card, so what should he care if they all dropped dead?

Cursing the ever present ache in his knees and his eyes and his fingers as they perpetually arched, Giovanni shuffled on, ready to head up to bed. Only when the lightning flashed again did he notice a black figure seated in his parlor.

If fear had ever struck him, Giovanni had never recognized it. He gambled – faster and faster – and quite nearly had a stroke at the sight of an unwelcome visitor seated primly on his burgundy chaise.

Seemingly unfazed, William T. Spears adjusted his glasses with his palm. “Trick or treat?”

“How in the blasted hell didja get in ere!?!” Giovanni shouted. “Not a one of those windows unlocked an- HEY!”

Quite out of nowhere, William had popped one of the caramel candies seated prettily on a glass on a table meant for Giovanni alone.

“Those taste terribly old,” said William with a smack of his mouth.

“Well yah be shocked at what us ‘terribly old’ can do! I won’ call the guard, mind. I’ll get my gun on yah!”

“Hunh. There’s no need for that,” said William. Almost as if Giovanni was asking if he would like a cup of tea.

Giovanni’s breathing became weighted, congested. The way it did when his wife used to refuse to pick a restaurant to eat at every Saturday. “What do yah want?”

“Proper candy would be a start.”

“That is proper candy…you children today have no idea what candy is supposed to be tasting like with your fancy ‘Phantom’ candy.”

William grimaced.

“Wha? That not good enough fah yah either? Pfah…”

Pressing his glasses up his nose and glancing sideways with eyes that only now Giovanni recognized to be inhumanely green, William scoffed. “Not good enough? I’d rather snip my tongue off than eat that tainted gunk.”

Though Giovanni knew that shock no longer registered on his frown-stained face, he made a noncommittal “Mmh.”

“And what brought you to that conclusion? Eat a bad lollipop, eh? If yah did, yah have Harold Giovanni Parrish to blame. Nnh. Presented the strawberry cream flavor himself to the Phantomhoover family and they gobbled it up like all the gold in London.”

Laying his pruner that had been clutched into his left hand along the knees of his long legs, William merely said, “I know.”

“Yeah? You know where he got that recipe from? From his mother! God rest her soul and the queen! Sold the family’s welfare right out the door…nmh…broke his mother’s heart. She been dead for near a decade now and I haven’ seen his face since and plan never to see it again.”

William nodded lightly before turning his head to left. “Is that peanut brittle in the container over there?”

“Eh! Yeah, yeah!” Without knowing quite why or remembering quite where this William had come from, Giovanni made his way with a huff and a heave across the room to the container. His hand shook, his wedding ring clanking against the glass, as he pulled the top off and plucked a piece of brittle free.

The hand that took the brittle from Giovanni’s shaking grasp was gloved. The fingers that wrapped around the brittle and brought it to William’s lips were thin, almost feminine. The strange man munched on the brittle loudly, his eerie green eyes blinking like a cat’s. He smacked. He snacked some more. He slid his glasses back up his harshly cut yet fragile nose.

“This is good,” said William.

“Yeah? You like that, Prince Albert?” asked Giovanni.

William tilted his head. “My name is William.”

“Eh…you’re a dense one, eh?” Giovanni watched as William nibbled on. “What’s this with yah and Halloween, boy? Yah too old to be doing this by yahself.”

Crunching rather loudly, William swallowed. “I am _far_ older than you.”

Giovanni might have begun to laugh or cackle. Whichever it was, it developed into a hacking cough. William said nothing as Giovanni struggled to regain his breath. Indeed, William simply finished off the rest of his brittle as Giovanni clutched at a rocking chair that swung his trembling upper body to and fro.

His lips popping against one another in a silent smack, William said, “Bad cough?”

Though he opened his mouth to answer, Giovanni could only cough in reply.

William pushed his glasses up his nose, frowning slightly. “So where do you keep the scones?”

Through another coughing fit, Giovanni could only point to a tray beside the brittle container.

As the phlegm built in Giovanni’s throat, he could not help but note the ferocity of his cough. It was five winters ago (or maybe seven?) that he had first developed a tickle in his throat that, at the time, had seemed no more than a product of the shifting weather. The rainy London nights turning into the chilled snowy mornings made people ill all the time. But as Giovanni went…day in and day out again and again…and others’ Christmas trees disappeared and the ladies’ parasols ballooned and blossomed forth like rising cake batter, his cough remained.

But this particular cough on this particular night was thick yet wheezed. The last time he had coughed so much, he had been in his fifties – a spry, young thing – and his Annabelle had worn red lace enough to make a harlot blush. Unfortunately, he knew the cough that stayed day in and again was not so jovial an occasion.  

When Giovanni managed to somewhat recover, he glanced up to find William’s frown growing more severe.

“Honestly,” sighed William, setting his pruner aside and standing up tall and tight. He straightened invisible lines on his jacket before turning heel and practically stomping over to the scones.

Giovanni clutched his chest. “Who…wh…what are you doing here again?”

William had already picked up a rather fat scone with frilled cream, had already allowed a dot of cream to kiss his glove, had already opened his mouth to bite when he huffed and lowered the treat.

“Sir, I am here to reap your soul.”

And with that, he popped the scone into his mouth and crunched, crunched, _crunched_ in delight. He eyed the swirl of cream on his gloved hand and, with a flex of his free hand, pushed up his glasses before swiping a thumb to catch the dollop and bring it to his thin lips.

Quite unimpressed, Giovanni breathed in and out and heaved.

“You reap what you sow…like…you’re…you’re haa…you’re one of those Bible-thumpers, eh?” asked Giovanni.

Saying nothing, William merely raised a piercing black eyebrow.

Giovanni felt his face grow ever harsher. “Yah wasting yah time. Yeh…out of all the widowers in London…I have to be the one who talks God’s ear off the most. Hoping he’ll take me any day now. Be the kindest thing he ever did for me besides bringing her in my life in the first place.”

William remained silent, his face a plain yet unfriendly blank. The strange man took three large steps past Giovanni before grabbing his pruner. Pruner…

“Ah…” Giovanni broke into a small cough. “Are you a gardener or a salesman or a Bible salesman who gardens or…or what?”

All Giovanni could notice was the slipping of William’s fingertips along the pruner until the sharp teeth were pushing up those steel-colored glasses. Behind those glasses, eyes the color of the limes Annabelle had found too late in life. Giovanni only tasted her lime pie three times before her end. All the limes had been donated from the sailors who swore it combated the scurvy. If only the limes could combat a broken heart.

“I’m a reaper,” said William, “and nothing more.”

Giovanni stared at a place on the wall. Had the wallpaper always been so gray? Hadn’t they been white just decades ago?

He noticed William still standing there. “What are yeh still doing here!?!”

William blinked. “I am here to reap your soul.”

A flash of lightning sparked the sky outside and Giovanni jumped, clutching his chest.

“Annabelle!” Giovanni shouted. “Annabelle! Where are you? It’s storming and I smell the pies burning!”

“Annabelle is dead, Mr. Parrish,” said William. “This storm has been going on all day and there are no pies.”

“Who are you?” asked Giovanni, suddenly incensed. This strange man in his home! The gall! “It’s the summer and Annabelle will be home soon and I’ve got to get the pies from the oven before the boys come home.”

“Sir, I tell you that you are confused.”

His entire body shaking, Giovanni screamed out, “NO! LEAVE! WHO ARE YOU? LEAVE HER ALONE! WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?!”

Like the cutting wind on a cold night, William appeared beside him quite out of nowhere. Giovanni jumped. Giovanni yelled. Giovanni nearly fell before William snatched his elbow to hold him steady.

“Mr. Parrish. I am here…” William paused. Giovanni attempted to mimic the man’s frown but distinctly felt that he was trying too hard. William sighed in response. “I am here to eat one of your wife’s famous pies.”

Unbidden, a smile erupted on Giovanni’s face. “Let’s go get her! Annabelle! Annabelle, dear!”

Giovanni grabbed William’s hand (cold…why was he so cold in the middle of the summer? Why was it so dark? Why did the house smell like pumpkin? Pumpkin only filled the air when it was…oh, it was the hottest summer of the year!) and practically yanked him toward the kitchen. Giovanni could feel his heart rushing as he made his way to his baker of a bride.

“Darling! We have a guest from…where are you from again?”

William – was it William? – said nothing. The man simply let Giovanni pull him along as he held a stiff grip on his pruner and made not a twitch in his face.

“Annabelle…heh…he…Anna…belle…?”

The kitchen appeared cold and mean and without a soul in sight. The oven was dark and empty. The world was a broken place.

“Annabelle? Annabelle! ANNABELLE! ANNA-“

Giovanni’s heart seemed to go ahead of him – _racing and racing_ toward his Annabelle and toward his boys and toward all the other things that were gone. But when his heart failed to come back, Giovanni fell to the floor. Though William’s glove was bare, Giovanni felt his palms full of sweat.

Had he known the thick split was in the ceiling, he would have fixed it before ever stepping heavy step by heavy step up the stairs each night. Or was there merely a chasm chasing across the city of London? Across the seas to America? Across the world with a start and end in his own heart?

His heart…

“Hel…he…hel…”

“I know,” said a voice, disembodied yet so grounded.

Somewhere above him, Giovanni’s fingers curved and shook and reached for the split in the ceiling. It reminded him of a crack in his Annabelle’s famous Cheery Cherry Pie. She’d cried because the pie was for the local fair’s contest. Yet she still won the whole damn thing. Even broken, she was perfect. Unlike the rest of the world.

“Mr. Parrish,” said the voice. “It is 21:23.”

Giovanni gasped. “Annabelle! The pie! It’s burning!”

The silence that followed was the most painful and most pitched sound that the world had ever known. A timer gone off for a sweet overbaked.

“No. The pie is perfect.”

* * *

“William! Oh, William!”

He needn’t turn around to know the redhead following him. William merely rolled his shoulders and walked steadily on. Yet a flash shot across his right ear - _too close -_ and appeared before him in the form of Grell Sutcliff in an outfit far from allowed in the dispatch office.

“Do you _like_?” asked Grell, winking at him behind red glasses. Red everything. The scum of the living world and the dead was wearing the most appallingly red lingerie complete with feathers and lace and no…William turned his head to the left, frowning and shutting his eyes tightly.

“I’d like to get to my office to work in peace,” bit out William.

“But you missed the party last night, Will!” said Grell. “You _never_ miss Halloween. You may stick against the wall and act offended at our stories, but I always see you shuffling off with the best sweets. And I missed you last night.”

William had no need to look at Grell to know the man was hugging himself and shaking like a frozen prostitute. The foolishness William had to endure was simply inhumane. 

“I had no appointment with you. I was working a case. And I have paperwork. Move.”

“A case on Halloween? Ooh! Was it bloody?” Grell’s sharp teeth practically chattered in glee.

Making sure to look pointedly at Grell’s face, William frowned. “It was a job.”

Grell’s face fell, saddened and sullen, and William took the opportunity to push past him with a none too gentle shove of his scythe. William lifted his head, eyes closing as Grell continued his nonsense. William’s free hand reached to his jacket’s worn pocket where a bit of brittle was hidden. He took it out to nibble beneath his teeth. 

It was flat. It was sweet. It was salty. It was hard and stuck to his teeth. 

It was perfect.

 


End file.
